More affiliation news

The time of the year is approaching where MLB clubs extend their PDC’s with their minor league affiliates or start to look around for new Minor League partners. The Dodgers did not wait for the season to end. Yesterday you could read here that they have extended their PDC’s with their AAA and AA affiliates. But yesterday the team also announced that it had extended the PDC with the Great Lakes Loons (A Full Season, Midwest League).

The Great Lakes Loons saw the light in 2007 and have been affiliated with the Dodgers ever since. 43 future players have called the Loons their team.

“Our relationship with the Great Lakes Loons and the Great Lakes Bay Region has blossomed beautifully in 2016,” Dodgers Director of Player Development Gabe Kapler said. “We feel lucky to be in a partnership with the Michigan Baseball Foundation, Bill Stavropoulos, Paul Barbeau and Scott Litle. We’re thrilled to continue our relationship with the organization for two more years.”

The Dodgers and the Loons will be linked to each other through the 2018 season.

More PDC extension news from the Pacific Coast League as the San Diego Padres announced that they have extended the Player Development contract with their AAA team, the El Paso Chihuahuas. The contract will now run through the 2018 season.

The cooperation between the two teams go back to 2001, when the team was still in Portland playing under the name Beavers. In 2011 the owner of the Beavers sold the team because he wanted to field a soccer team. The team ended up in Tucson to become the Padres before they were sold to the MountainStar Sports Group, who moved to team to El Paso eventually.

As usual, both team exchanged pleasantries:

Padres President and CEO Mike Dee stated: “We are pleased to extend our partnership with the Chihuahuas and to maintain El Paso as the home of our Triple-A club. The next several years will be exciting ones for our player development system, as the amateur talent A.J. (Preller) and his team have acquired with the support of ownership makes its way through the system, and we are looking forward to seeing many talented players come through Southwest University Park. The Chihuahuas organization, led by the first-class ownership of the Foster and Hunt families, is a perfect partner.”

“Over the past few years, our baseball operations department has invested a significant amount of time and resources to ensure consistency in approach, message and mentality across the player development system, and the Chihuahuas have been great partners in that effort,” said Padres Executive Vice President/General Manager A.J. Preller. “The winning atmosphere in El Paso that Alan, Brad and the entire organization have created is important for our developing players to experience as they make their way to San Diego.”